My first night on the road, April 16, I stayed with my cousin Cara and her stepson Casey in Buena Vista, Colorado. Zeke and Piper got along reasonably well for their first meeting, though Zeke was still enough of a puppy to be pretty rambunctious.
During the night it snowed, and I spent about a half hour scraping ice off the windows before I started out. Snow was falling as I got to the summit of Monarch Pass. Front wheel drive, with the weight of the engine over the drive wheels, is good for icy conditions. I poked along and had no problems.
Descending the Western Slope got less and less snowy. By the time I got to Montrose and Delta, it was sunny and the temperature was over 70º.
Eastern Utah was pleasant, also sunny and in the seventies.
Zeke turned out to be a good, patient traveler, riding for long stretches without any fuss. A dog always enjoys a chance to get out and sniff the local smells.
This is a view in the Black Dragon Canyon area of eastern Utah.
Here's Black Dragon Canyon...
...and a view to the north.
There's no picture of camping at Great Basin National Park in Nevada because we arrived after dark and left before daylight. I can report that I gave up trying to set up the tent in the dark when my fingers got too numb from the cold, about 34º, and we spent the night in the car. Here's a typical view along the road in Nevada.
Another sniff stop.
Our first and second nights in California were at this camp on the Kern River. All the National Forest camps in the mountains were still snowed in, but here at the bottom of the canyon it was very pleasant.
A view of the Kern River next to the campground.
Some of the road in Kern Canyon has pretty sharp turns, as this barrier scarred with the marks of careening traffic demonstrates.
When Mom and Dad got married in 1936 and moved to California, they lived in Oildale, where Dad built this house. He was a very meticulous perfectionist, and Mom used to jokingly accuse him of even sanding the studs.